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More About This Web site:

Everyone is very welcome here ....

whether you describe yourself as an Agnostic, animist, Atheist, Bitheist, Deist, Duotheist, evangelical, fundamentalist, Neo-pagan, a NOTA (i.e. NOT Affiliated or NONE), Pagan, polytheist, progressive, religious conservative, religious liberal, secular Humanist, secularist, spiritual but not religious, theist, Unitarian, Wiccan, Zoroastrian, etc., or some combination of the above.

Our main goal is to discuss the beliefs and practices of all of these groups -- and others -- fairly and accurately, and to promote religious tolerance, acceptance, knowledge, cooperation, understanding and coexistence.

We are very different from almost all other religious web sites:

There are millions of religious web sites on the Internet. Almost all explain only the beliefs of the webmaster or of the sponsoring group. Most promote only their own denomination, tradition, sect, or faith group as having the "fullness of truth."

This web site is different. We try to accurately compare and contrast the beliefs of many faith groups, and how they have changed over time. We explain their similarities and differences, and how they are contributing to tolerance and intolerance in the world.

We feel that sites like ours can help people understand what other people think and why they think the way that they do.

Gene Rodenberry, the creator of Star Trek expressed a similar vision for his TV show:

The Dalai Lama expressed a simillar viewpoint:

"The whole purpose of religion is to facilitate love and compassion, patience, tolerance, humility, and forgiveness."

New and recently updated reports:

Links to new and updated material are listed on the home page.

Links to essays updated for the last eight months or so are listed here.

Another difference on our web site is that we have an errata section where we describe the mistakes we have made and the corrections. An errata section in a website is about a rare as teeth are on a hen.

Current high profile topics in the U.S. with a religious component that are discussed on this web site:

For a decade or two, homosexuality and to a lesser degree: bisexuality, were very heavily covered in the religious media, the rest of the Internet, etc. However, with the legalization of gay marriage in the U.S. during mid-2015, other topics have become very popular.

Of the many religious topics saturating the news, the following appear to have the highest profile right now:

• Abortion access: In what situations should informed women be free to choose to have an abortion: all, none, or some? What are the best ways to reduce abortions: by restricting access, by making child raising more feasible, or by promoting contraceptive usage and availability. Whether educating sexually active youth in how to prevent pregnancy and STIs will lower or raise the abortion rate is often debated.
  
  There is general agreement that a zygote -- a just-fertilized ovum -- is a form of life. Since it has human DNA, it is a form of human life. There is also general agreement that a newborn is a form of human life that is also a human person. A core disagreement about abortion is when human personhood actually begins: at conception, at birth, or some time in between.
  
  
• Islamophobia: This involves fear, anger, hatred, and/or discrimination directed against Muslims. Some target the perpetrators of 9/11 and similar religiously-motivated terrorist attacks. Some even express opposition against Muslims trying to escape violence in their country of origin. Some attack all of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims.
  
  
• Religious freedom:  This term has two very different meanings. In the past it referred to people being free to believe as they wish, speak and write freely about their religious beliefs, assemble with others of the same religious tradition, engage in different religious practices, proselytize others, etc. However, it is now rapidly evolving to mean something very different: using religious freedom to oppress, denigrate, and attack women and minorities -- particularly sexual minorities -- in violation of the Golden Rule.
  
  
• Transgender persons and transsexuals: These terms refer to people who were identified as being either female or male when they were born, but who now identify as being the opposite gender or, rarely, as having no gender or an intermediate gender. With the legalization of same-sex marriage during mid-2015, many religious and socially conservative agencies who opposed equality for lesbians, gays and bisexuals quickly switched much of their emphasis to opposing equal rights for transgender persons and transsexuals.
  
  
• "Boy Scouts of America" (BSA): The BSA has made major strides in ending its discrimination against LGBT youth and adults. However, the BSA's membership ban on Atheists, Agnostics, secular Humanists and other non-theists continues.
  

This web's most popular sections:

About 97% of our visitors bypass this home page entirely and go to sections dealing with specific topics.

Recently, the most popular section is Agnosticism, followed by World religions' beliefs & practices, Buddhism, Islam, Wicca, a neo-pagan religion, Hinduism, Homosexuality in the Bible, Human embryo & fetal development, Same-sex marriage, Christianity, Sharia law, Data about world religions, The Amish, Taoism, Our group's statement of beliefs, Naturist info., and Homosexual orientation/LGBT topics.

• How this web site differs from almost all other web sites. The definitions that we use, our mandate, and motto.
  
  
• Web site news.
  
  

Disclaimer:

Information for our reports was extracted from reliable sources, and believed to be accurate and reasonably unbiased. Where possible, essays about individual faith groups have been reviewed by a group (typically of 3 or more persons) who belong to the group. However, the entire field of religion is very subjective. Multiple, conflicting, and often mutually exclusive opinions abound. Before accepting anything on this web site that may have a direct impact on your own or somebody else's life, we recommend that you check out its validity with other information sources.

If you find any errors here, please report them so that we can list them on our errata page and correct our essays. A Contact Us link is at the bottom of almost every page in our web site.

Footnotes:

1. The six religions on the left navigation bar include the three largest faiths in North America and the three most visited faiths on our web site.
   
   
2. According to Google, our home page's page rank is currently: out of 10. Page rank is a measure of the relative importance of a page, in the opinion of Google.
   
   
3. We are strongly:
   
   
4. This web site is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to www.amazon.com.

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Copyright © Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Author: B.A. Robinson
Most recently updated: 2018-JUN-18

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